specification: API Commons Rate Limits
specificationVersion: '0.1'
schema: https://raw.githubusercontent.com/api-evangelist/interface-research/main/schema/api-commons.yml#/$defs/RateLimits
provider: Mercado Libre
providerId: mercado-libre
created: '2026-05-08'
# Provenance stamped 2026-08-11: this artifact was written by the API Evangelist
# bulk sweep dated 2026-05-08, not harvested from the provider. See roadmap#35.
method: generated
modified: '2026-05-08'
reconciled: false
tags:
- E-Commerce
- Marketplace
- Latin America
- Payments
- Mercado Pago
- Rate Limiting
- Quotas
- Throttling
description: >-
  Mercado Libre applies per-app and per-user rate limits on the marketplace REST API. Public details are not exhaustive — limits depend on the resource (items, orders, search, etc.) and on the application's commercial agreement. The API returns HTTP 429 when limits are exceeded.
notes: Specific request-per-minute thresholds are not publicly published; sellers should monitor headers and contact support for higher quotas.
sources:
- https://developers.mercadolibre.com/en_us/api-docs-en
- https://developers.mercadolibre.com/en_us/best-practices
responseCodes:
  throttled: 429
limits:
- name: Default per-app
  scope: application
  metric: requests
  limit: see provider documentation
  notes: Per-app rate limits apply across all endpoints; not publicly documented in detail.
- name: Per-user
  scope: user
  metric: requests
  limit: see provider documentation
  notes: Limits also apply per authenticated marketplace user/seller.
- name: Search
  scope: application
  metric: requests
  limit: see provider documentation
  notes: Search endpoints have stricter quotas than catalog reads.
policies:
- name: Backoff Strategy
  description: Honor 429 responses with exponential backoff and jitter; cache responses where allowed.
- name: Webhooks
  description: Prefer webhook notifications over polling for orders and questions to reduce request volume.
maintainers:
- FN: Kin Lane
  email: kin@apievangelist.com